1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of user interfaces to computer systems that are capable of responding to audio input, e.g., speech or touch-tone phones.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditionally, audio interfaces have been built by programmers by hand, and the “sound and feel” of an application was fixed at design-time. With automated code generation wizards for audio user interfaces, code for the two most common sound user interfaces (DTMF only, or speech only applications) can be generated. While this greatly enhances the time-to-market of an audio application, currently there are no wizards that generate mixed interface (DTMF and voice) applications. Mixed interface applications can be designed in a variety of ways, by employing the two interfaces at convenient times. A design that uses a mix of speech and DTMF (Dual Tone Multi-Frequency) input, the system used by touch-tone telephone interfaces, can solve problems that are not otherwise tractable in either DTMF or voice user interface alone. For example, when there is a problem with the speech recognition response, it is advantageous to allow the interface to DTMF, or to design the program to automatically respond to the recognition problem by switching to DTMF. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method and system that provides developers of interactive voice response systems the capability to easily enable either voice or DTMF or a mix of the two from a single high-level application call flow design, as will be explained in detail below.